Being a Perfectionist

How much time should you put into a paragraph when it comes to editing or revisions? There was a passage in THE VASE where I discovered the word, “but” appeared in two consecutive sentences. Not that it’s a mortal sin, but to me it didn’t work in that instance. Sometimes I don’t want it appearing twice in the same paragraph, let alone two consecutive sentences.

I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote, and hashed it about, changing sentences, changing the whole paragraph, leaving some sentences alone, changing others, changing them back, and found myself starting over from scratch several times. After a couple hours, it was back to the same original paragraph. Finally I combined a couple of sentences, and deleted some, and it started to work. By that time, four hours had passed!

Today, I went back to reread it, and it still looks good. I have found that if you stick to it, if you don’t give up, eventually you come up with something that not only works, but is a truly superb example of writing. And when you achieve it, you'll know it when you see it.